The end of oyster
Transport for London (TfL) has celebrated its first successful year of accepting contactless payment cards on all of the Capital’s 8,500 buses.
Since it was launched on Thursday 13 December 2012 when 2,061 customers made 2,586 journeys, more than 6.5 million journeys have now been made using an American Express, MasterCard or Visa Europe contactless payment card.
Usage continues to rise strongly and now an average of around 33,000 bus journeys a day are paid for using the debit, credit or charge cards.
Around 1,300 new cards are used each day as more customers benefit from the ease and convenience of using the card they already have in their pocket if they do not have an Oyster card or have run out of credit, and pay the cheaper PAYG fare rather than using cash.
Contactless payment was launched on buses first to raise awareness and instigate a smooth transition into the wider roll out.
Acceptance on London Underground, London Overground, DLR and trams will launch next year when London will become the first city in the world to fully integrate contactless payment cards into the fare system.
Shashi Verma, TfL’s Director of Customer Experience, said: ‘It is fantastic that so many people are taking advantage of the ease and convenience of using their contactless payment cards to pay their bus fares. Each week we are setting a new record for usage which gives us great confidence for when we launch on the rest of the network and make contactless fully integrated next year.’
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